Gear / Equipment

In many cases, the right gear is almost as important as the camera itself. The following overview can be seen as a short checklist. Not every piece of equipment is required by every photographer or in every situation.

Professionals use them and ever more amateurs are starting to use them, often due to new techniques in panoramic photography and HDR. They are crucial in many image capturing situations. In these areas as is the case in many situations in available light photography (e.g., images captured at dusk or at night), tripods are huge aids to photographers.

When using tripods, you should make sure that the surface is sturdy and doesn’t shake. The use of them for instance on high rises, bridges, boats (pointing at sea or land), parquet floor or other flooring is problematic as these surfaces can shake and transfer vibration.

Many filters that are crucial in analog photography are not particularly useful in digital photography. Numerous filters that are used in analog photography can be simulated in an improved and controlled manner on the computer. However, there are some filters that still fulfil their purpose and are still used (e.g., polarising filters, ND filters, grey filters, grey graduation filter…) and cannot be simulated using the computer. The article provides an overview of the topic „Filters in photography“. The links provide even more information about this topic.

Numerous filters that are used in analog photography can be simulated in a controlled manner on the computer. The effect of these filters can be well estimated and if need be can be undone. Among the filters that fall into this category are mainly effect and colour filter (e.g., colour correction filter, Gaussian blur, starburst filter, grid filter, colour gradient filter). These filters are seldom used in digital photography. The following article focuses mainly on filters that are used when capturing an image (e.g., polarising filters, ND filters, grey filters, grey graduation filter…) as their effect cannot be fully recreated in image processing.